Homeschooling- A Good or bad experience for your family?
By mckenziemom
@mckenziemom (522)
United States
January 28, 2007 1:57pm CST
I have been homeschooling my 5 year old son and 4 year-old daughter for a little under a year. The first few months I was using a pre-k curriculumn that I purchased online. The kids enjoyed sitting down and working on the lessons and activities. My son started pre-school last August and I enrolled him in an online charter school. The name of the school is Connections Academy. The school is supported by a local school district and we have all of our school books and school supplies sent to us by the school district. We also have the support of a school teacher with Connections that supports us with bi-weekly phone calls,live lessons online and emails. Our daily curriculumn is set up for us so we complete our work and send it in to be graded. Our teacher sends our graded work with feedback. We are also a part of a community of homeschoolers with Connections Academy. There are about 4,000 students in Oregon enrolled in this program. There are field trips and activities so that the kids can socialize with others. This homeschooling program has been a good fit for us and a blessing to our family. My oldest son has been doing very well and he loves learning. I admit it can be a juggling act with my 5 year old doing schoolwork, my four year-old doing pre-k and my two-year-old twins into everything!! The alternatives(public school) is not an option for us. I'd love to hear feedback from other families about homeschooling.
3 responses
@Willowlady (10658)
• United States
5 Mar 07
I am glad you have that and that is working well for you.
We would not want to be associated with the school system in anyway. We can get plenty of socializing without it. Our school system is not very good, we don't need those stupid proficiency test which they end up studying for mostly. We are on a year round schedule, like the work world. We take time when we need to, for sickness etc and do not all behind that way. We use a curriculum that also sends out gradecards. We use workbooks, scannable tests and get teacher editions. We do quite well and only recently the school system has become less adversarial. Good luck with this. It is well worth it.
1 person likes this
@wahmbrendamh (576)
• United States
6 Mar 07
I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. We also do a year round schedule. While we primarily unschool it does help to do year round because we do also use some of the Charlotte Mason approach with living literature.
Brenda Marie
Homeschool 4 Us (My homeschool blog): http://homeschool4us.blogspot.com/
My ebook: "Homeschooling Without The Headaches" http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=812683
1 person likes this
@avonrep1 (1862)
• United States
4 Mar 07
I homeschool my children also and use a mixed approach to it. I use all the free resources that I can. But I also buy different educational software for the computer (either at ebay.com or halfpricebooks.com) and get expensive software cheap, and homeschool workbooks and school books. I am also a member of a group called freecycle their maybe on in your area if you are interested in it. Where I get educational materials for free. But I also use time4learning.com they add new stuff daily and it is challenging work that lets them learn at their own pace. For spelling I like Wizardspell.com you can customize the list or use the preloaded lists. I also like abcteach.com You can take word list and create custom worksheets to go along with a spelling list. They also have 1000s of worksheets in each grade level and subjects. I try to let them decide what they want to learn that day within reason. I like the unschooling method of teaching and try to make sure they have all the resources that they need.
1 person likes this
@avonrep1 (1862)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Oh yeah we love homeschooling and wouldn't never go back to public school. We go to the Y for gym class with other homeschoolers, and we go to an art class that gets offered in our area, plus we take a martiak arts class with other homeschoolers. We are planning a field trip with a group of them.
1 person likes this
@wahmbrendamh (576)
• United States
4 Mar 07
We primarily unschool but it's been a wonderful experience for us. We're involved in a lot of activities in our community where my dd can be with other kids. We also read a lot of books and do some lapbooks. We spend about 30 minutes a day doing real seat work from a daily devotional Bible, a daily nursery rhymes/poetry book and whatever lapbook dd wants to work on at that time. Even that's not set in stone though. If she's interested in another topic that day or we run out of time, then so be it. My dd is way ahead of her kindergarten friends anyhow. She's autistic though and in a normal school I'm sure she'd have failed miserably by now and be totally frustrated with school. I hope this answers your question somewhat.
Brenda Marie
Homeschool 4 Us (My homeschool blog): http://homeschool4us.blogspot.com/
My ebook: "Homeschooling Without The Headaches" http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=812683
